The Things We Hold Dear

No, I'm not on drugs and you're not hallucinating either. That is a photo of a Coke vending machine, a frog, and the Parthenon.

I watched some TV tonight. It's been so busy over the holidays here that I enjoyed just kicking back in front of the boob tube for a bit. Flipping through the channels I landed on PBS (Public Broadcast System here in the US) and watched a show called Wild Chronicles, a National Geographic program. I normally enjoy the nature shows and PBS for the most part. So much of television seems geared to numbing the brain. So I find it a bit more stimulating to watch a show where I actually learn something.

On this particular show they featured a frog on the endangered species list called the Mountain Chicken. It is delicacy on islands in the Caribbean for it tastes like, yes, chicken. Because it tastes so finger-lickin' good it is decreasing in population very quickly. There are biologist teams that are very busy on these islands trying to save the Mountain Chicken from extinction.

Later on I watched a program, again on PBS, about this team of archeologists in Greece that are painstakingly rebuilding the Parthenon - brick by brick, column by column. They have recreated ancient tools and building methods to put it all back together, the way it was 2500 years ago or so.

And then I got to thinking. I don't think the things that man holds dear are the same things that God holds dear.

For instance, in the United States alone there are 1,200,000 induced abortions per year. That's 3,288 per day, 137 per hour, 9 per minute. One abortion every 26 seconds. I think God holds a bit more dearly the extinction of unborn children over that of chicken-tasting reptiles, don't you? I think He holds more dearly the importance of saving human life, whether unborn, elder, or in between, over saving some pile of stones for historical posterity sake.

Can I get a witness here?

Then I got to thinking even more.

Let's say Earth and it's inhabitants are around for another thousand or so years. It's the year 3008 and a team of archeologists are most puzzled over a recent find - a small structure from the 21st century.

They decipher the ancient English language written on it and discover that its name was, "Ice Cold Coca Cola." Years of investigating go into studying this wonder of the ancient world. Parts of the structure were destroyed or missing over the past centuries so they painstakingly attempt to recreate them to restore the "Ice Cold Coca Cola" structure to its original beauty. But for all the intelligence that this future human race holds they are clueless as to this structure's meaning and purpose. But I suppose that's of little consequence when your agenda is about saving history or saving frogs.

Do you think God holds dearly things of a bit more importance?

I'm going to bed now. I'm tired and my brain hurts from all this pondering. Blame it on PBS.

But, damn it, I'm glad I saw the truth in all this tonight. It's so easy to go with the flow and not question anything... to just allow our brains to numb over and accept what others tell us.

More pondering to come as the pondering comes.

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